YouTube Takes MIPCOM: EMEA Chief Pedro Pina and BBC Studios’ Jasmine Dawson Say It’s All About “Feeding Fandom”

YouTube has arrived on the Croisette.

For the first time in the company’s 20-year history, the content behemoth —owned by Google —has come to MIPCOM and used its first keynote session to laud the platform’s partnership with BBC Studios. Pedro Pina, vice-president, head of YouTube EMEA and Jasmine Dawson, senior vice-president of digital at BBC Studios took to the Palais stage with Evan Shapiro on Monday morning.

The pair were probed on challenging the usual norms of broadcast television in favor of creator-facing content, and why cultivating fandom —audiences that grow emotionally attached to an IP online —lies at the heart of success when it comes to tackling YouTube’s intricate ecosystem. Dawson and Pina touted the triumph of BBC Earth’s YouTube channel, one of BBC Studios’ oldest channels on the platform (launched in 2009) and boasting over 14 million subscribers, as an example.

“Putting our audience obsession at the heart of everything we do is what makes our business work now, being fandom first,” said Dawson. “BBC Studios is proud to build the biggest fandoms across the world… That’s why the partnership with YouTube is so critical, because that partnership is enabling and driving that creative-first mindset.” BBC Earth is able to draw on a host of content from the BBC’s Natural History Unit as well as the David Attenborough-narrated Planet Earth and Blue Planet, she explained. “What we are excelling at is finding our fandoms — finding our fandoms across the world who care about [these shows].”

Pina concurred with Dawson, adding that traditional TV players too often fall into the trap of assuming that content is still working on “a push mechanism.” He said: “Typically, people look at distribution platforms from a broadcasting standpoint, [they say], ‘I have a piece of content right now and YouTube reaches however many million people, so I’m just going to push the content, and somehow magically it shows up on in front of people on the other side.’ And that’s just not how it works.”

“It’s not a push mechanism anymore, it’s a pull mechanism,” continued Pina. “That’s why hiring YouTube creators is so important, because they understand fundamentally that this is about curating, taking care of your fandom, [and] feeding your fandom what they need in order for them to start pulling their audience.”

Dawson told audience members that BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the British broadcaster, have done exactly that. Content creators now hold senior positions at the company, a fact that Shapiro pointed out might make some execs listening a little uncomfortable. “I think there is a real big difference between a creator that thinks about their channel 24/7 and the digital teams that sit on the other side for us,” explained Dawson. “But also we’re learning from each other, and that’s really important, and we believe that we have found our fandoms and have cracked that code.”

The BBC Studios exec said that engagement isn’t suffering through the partnership. “We see this with so many of our IPs —it’s not a mutually exclusive game,” Dawson said about making the content free to consume on YouTube. “We’re not sacrificing anything. Actually, it’s incremental. And that is a really powerful conversation to have with some of our distribution partners, whether it’s Bluey with Disney or some of our BBC Earth titles with PBS and other distributors. They understand that this is where the fandom grows, and it drives that incrementality.”

Pina said the power is in accessibility. “Everyone could be a YouTuber,” he told Shapiro, adding that partnering with YouTube is a win-win for both parties. “We don’t commission stuff, so we don’t give money and then make profit back. What we do is, if you’re successful, I’m successful. If you’re not successful, I’m not successful. It’s the best combination ever. The audience will determine whether the content is good or not.”

Read our MIPCOM preview here, where THR takes a look at the ramifications of the creator economy taking center stage at this year’s edition.